I use different PC's at home. The principal PC's for all family member's are book PC's with the cheap chip set INTEL i810 an built in interface for video, audio, lan, etc ...
The puppy driver don't allow more than 800 x 600 resolution on the screen because of the cheap set (I did try 2 different monitors both able for higher resolution). It is possible to choice a kind of pseudocolor but it is a really bad solution.

For puppy 1.0.2 this is a killer situation:

- it is not possible to start Opera at all because it is not possible to finish the first start settings.

- No opera - no email ability as POP3 transaction because there is no second email programm in the new distribution.

Posted: Mon 23 May 2005, 17:51 Post subject:
i will try to install a correct X-driver for the i810

thank you john

the correct solution is to try install a correct X-driver especially for the i810 set. in different linux versions with the old kernels it was no problem. in other, it was the good reason to renonce to use linux (as I did do it years allong because I have such old pc's...)

I don't understand why puppy don't works with i810: all other live distributions I did try work properly until 1024 x 768 without difficulty on the same PC because they all use modern kernels where the driver is built in (mandrake move, knoppix, gnoppix). This limitation is a surprise for me because the systems become always better and better in in this case not. And 2 .. 3 years along the industrie did build a lot of cheap PC's with the i810 cheap chip set.

My computer has the i815t chipset, and I'm pretty sure it uses the i810 drivers. I haven't had any problem with either Barry's or John's Puppy at 800 x 600 x 16 bit resolution. Opera works fine for me.

I've been struggling with this issue myself for some time now. What I've learned is that the problem with Puppy and the Intel i810 graphics chipset family appears to stem from Xvesa (X links to /usr/X11R6/bin/Xvesa) mistakenly reporting too little graphics memory with certain BIOSes.

The i810 chipset doesn't have any video memory of its own but dynamically 'borrows' from main memory as needed (from 832 bytes up to 32MB I believe).

When I run Puppy on two different laptops , a ThinkPad R51 and a Dell Inspiron 510m, both with 1024x768 screens, 512MB RAM and 855GME graphics chips (the i810 chipset family), it runs fine on the R51 in 1024x768x16, but on the 510m it only comes up in 640x480x16 although I can choose a number of PseudoColor modes with higher resolution. But Puppy in PseudoColor is truely awful That limits the resolution to VGA(!) and most applications in Puppy expect a larger desktop in order to work properly.

Running 'Xvesa -listmodes' on the laptops reveals Xvesa as the source of the problem. Note the figures for 'Total memory':

From what I can find on the internet, Xvesa seems to be part of project RULE: the kdrive resource (http://www.rule-project.org/en/sw/kdrive.php) which also lists an Xi810 binary. I tried running Xi810 in Puppy, but it just complained about a missing library libpam.so.0.

Unfortunately, I haven't the faintest idea how to get this to work with Puppy.

Does anyone have this Xi810 driver for Puppy?

/PaulLast edited by pakt on Sat 18 Jun 2005, 12:54; edited 2 times in total

Does anyone know how to fix this? Perhaps someone is willing to compile an Xi810 or a newer Xvesa driver for Puppy. In that case I will be happy to test it. /Paul

I don't know the difference between Xvesa and Xfree86 and why Puppy uses Xvesa and not Xfree86.

Intel has a special download page for the i810. You can find a lot of material for dos, windows and linux (Xfree86).

after using that, I did promise me "I will never more in the life a Intel processor system"...

on one computer, it's works, on the next, it's works not (as you says the missing lib's, and the place where you build the new system in you file system - it's the same with Xfree86. but i suppose that Xfree86 has not the problem any more after starting of full linux; but it is possible in possible by starting: I did never try the corel-linux distribution because it wasn't possible to see something on the screen by start!)...

but I have different old computers all with this terrible chip set...

after that, I did buy new computers for my sohn, for me and did look before buying for an other processor as intel! i am very happy that i have not intel any more for MY computer...

the problem for the owners of i810-systems is that you have to accept to run your system with a bad visualisation or to return to dos and microsoft windows because nobody is expert in this kind of procedure: all 5 years only you have to find the solution, and you can't become an expert...

so it can only be a matter for the creator of the distribution! his choice concerning libraries, and servers is decisive in this matter.

I have the same problem as well, having an Intel 815 chipset. I can go as high as 640*480*24bit, 800*600*16bit, or 1024*768*8bit (which is ugly.) Oddly enough, on a newer PC with a better video card that I tested, my video options are even MORE limited (640*480*16bit color at best.) I will be anxiously monitoring this thread and others like it in the event that some halfway decent video drivers become available for Puppy. Ideally, I would be happy just to have 800*600*24bit color.

Regarding what I wrote earlier about the poor resolution (640x480x16 TrueColor) when running Puppy on a Dell Inspiron 510m with a 1024x768 screen, I should probably add that I can run Kanotix linux (works well on laptops and which I can highly recommend) in the highest resolution (1024x768x24 TrueColor) without a hitch on the same Dell 510m.

I have even run Kanotix at 1280x1024x24 TrueColor on this laptop by connecting a 17" external screen and simply changing a setting in KDE. I would think that this proves that the hardware (the i810 graphics chip family) will work without any difficulty in linux. Unfortunately, it is the driver that Puppy uses that is at fault.

IMHO, this problem should really be fixed because Puppy is a great little distro. The i810 chipset family is very common in both laptops (Centrino) and desktops today. It is cheaper to manufacture (and uses less power) than adding a dedicated graphics chip and will work fine for normal PC use not only under windows, but with many linux distros that I've tested.

Francois: You might just try Kanotix (http://kanotix.com/) on your family's PCs that have the i810 chipset. It's a live CD, but can easily be installed on the hard disk.

Just as a matter of interest I decided to display at 24 million colours at 1024 x 1280

- Puppy 1.0.2 works OK with the 16 meg PCI Voodoo card and 17" AOC LCD montitor at the max resolution I can display.

When I was first using Puppy - I thought it was great but I could not stand the slow scrolling - so it was not feasible for me. Then I discovered the -shadow option (which has been mainstreamed as I no longer have to enter it)

Puppy does not work with everything. Barrys efforts to offer BOTH kernels (one as an unleashed package) in future Puppys will hopefully be of help

That people are increasingly seeing Puppy as a mobile distro is encouraging.

Anyway I do not have an easy solution - just dropped by to encourage your efforts to get these systems running and keeping on to manufacturers and Linux developers to generate ever better options.

Puppy is the first Linux that I am using. Not using in principle or for learning but using because it is better, faster, more fun. I am enjoying computing again.

I read that Barry, due to space limitations, limited video support to the Xvesa kdriver server.

I can understand that, after all, it does seem to work on a lot of machines (even if it doesn't on the Dell 510m and many other PCs with the i810-graphics chipset family)

What surprised me most though was that Xvesa actually worked on the ThinkPad R51, giving a full 1024x768x16 resolution in spite of the i810 graphics chipset

I would love to try the Xi810 kdriver server on these laptops. Correct me if I'm wrong but shouldn't it be possible to boot Puppy, do a ctrl-alt-backspace then start the Xi810 driver with the appropriate parameters to test it?

Would one of the Puppy developers or anyone else with a 'Puppy compiling environment' be kind enough to compile the Xi810 driver and make it available for testing? Perhaps we can solve this problem and make it practical to run Puppy on many more machines Last edited by pakt on Sat 18 Jun 2005, 10:18; edited 1 time in total

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